28th Sep 2021 – THREE GO TRAVELLING

Leaving our first UK off-grid stop, we continued along the A861 and the peninsula to the ferry port at Ardgour, where we chose to take the ferry to Corran and drive up to Fort William to fill up with diesel and groceries, rather than the longer return along the A830, before heading back along the A830, past the Glenfinnan Viaduct (a seen in Harry Potter) and the Locks at Banavie – Neptune’s Locks and on to Arisaig and the Caravan and Motorhome Club (CMC) Certified Location (CL) The Small Isles CL Caravan Site https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/certificated-locations/scotland/highlands/arisaig/small-isles-cl-caravan-site-arisaig/ I had been looking to find the campsite, we stayed at near here many years before and when I found it there was no availability! I looked on the CMC website and found this one, thinking it would be a good substitute! Well, on arrival, it was NEXT DOOR! What a find and perfect for Birthday Celebrations! Access to the white sandy beach is direct from the campsite and you can just see the steam of the Jacobite Train, a.k.a. Hogwarts Express. We did actually catch up with it on our journey back to the Mainland! This site is one we wouldn’t want to share but that is so unfair to the owners, who have made it lovely!

Returning back to the mainland, we saw the steam of the Jacobite Train (Hogwarts Express) https://westcoastrailways.co.uk/jacobite/steam-train-trip and managed to get some photos (and a video of the afternoon train). We headed back up to Ben Nevis and on to Roy Bridge, where we had opted to stop at Bunroy Park https://www.bunroypark.co.uk/. There is a perfect river walk right along the edge of the campsite.

After Bunroy, we headed back to Fort William and the CMC Club Site at Bunree. On our way we stopped for lunch alongside the Loch Leven, before joining the ever increasing queue for the campsite. The prime pitches are lochside and not bookable, so there is a scramble to get them, but in our usual manner, we were hopeful but not expectant…. We got a great one – home for three nights and with differing weather (including a big gust of wind one early morning, which saw us and others, putting away our wind-out canopies! Despite arriving in sunshine, we were lucky over the next two days to get a break in the rain, but the views were spectacular when there was a break.

Moving on, in persistent rain, we headed south along the coast to Oban and Oban Caravan Park https://obancaravanpark.com/. Oban is a lively town and ferry port, the ferries from here go to a lot of the smaller Isles as well as the Outer Hebrides. The town has a slightly more cosmopolitan feel than many of the others, we’ve visited, probably due to the number of visitors it gets each day, along with the number of shops, restaurants and bars. Oban Caravan Park is located on a slight hill, with views down over the Loch and the countryside.